Featured Image Credit: ABC
Topics: Film and TV, Celebrity
Greg Harris
Desperate Housewives actor Jesse Metcalfe has claimed he was fired from the show after being a series regular.
As fans of the beloved drama will know, Metcalfe played John Rowland, the eye-candy gardener who has an affair with Gabrielle Solis (Eva Longoria) in the first season back in 2004.
Viewers saw him shirtless a lot, and occasionally trimming bushes, as John and Gabrielle secretly hooked up as they dodged constant close calls with Gabrielle’s husband Carlos Solis (Ricardo Antonio Chavira). We all remember watching John ducking, hiding, and improvising hiding spots and excuses all through the first season.
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Metcalfe became a heartthrob and earned three Teen Choice Award nominations in 2005 for TV actor, TV breakout performance and choice hottie, winning the breakout star award.
Metcalfe, now 47, was initially hired as a series regular before being downgraded, however he continued returning to Wisteria Lane as a guest star over the course of the ABC series.
The show’s creator, Marc Cherry, decided John’s storyline had come to an end after season one and decided to fire Metcalfe from the show.
“I was fired from Desperate Housewives,” he told Amanda Hirsch on her podcast Not Skinny But Not Fat.
“After the first season they didn’t really know where else to take my storyline," he said.
“Our creator, Marc Cherry, was like, ‘This isn’t Desperate House Gardners, this is Desperate Housewives, so unfortunately you’re not going to be a series regular moving forward on the show,” Metcalfe recalled.
“At that time I had been offered [the lead role in] John Tucker Must Die from 20th Century Fox, so I was like, hey, cool, no big deal. I’m going to be a movie star.
“I was just kind of riding the wave, you know, because that show really broke and I had everything coming at me and I was just enjoying it,” he continued.
Ahead of the show’s 20th anniversary, Eva Longoria responded to fans who called for the show to return, stating that it would get cancelled today because of shifting attitudes.
When asked about a possible return to Wisteria Lane, Longoria said she’d be ‘the first to sign up’.
“I miss Gabby so much. I miss being Gabby Solis,” she told Access Hollywood.
One of the most shocking storylines in the show is Gabby and John’s steamy affair happens when he is still in high school in season one.
"I don't know if we could do the show today, I think we'd get cancelled," she told ET Online.
"I mean, not cancelled on TV but like cancelled in culture because it was so groundbreaking. We said and did so many things that were shocking at the time."